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Out-FM
Tue, Dec 16, 2025 8:00 PM
THE ICONIC BLACK LESBIAN SOCIALIST-FEMINIST COMBAHEE
The Iconic Black Lesbian Socialist-Feminist Combahee River Collective
The Combahee River Collective (1974-80) was a Boston-based group of Black lesbian socialist-feminists that blazed new trails of mutual solidarity, forged bold new Black feminist theory (particularly their 1977 Collective Statement), and led important struggles against racism, sexism, and homophobia. The Collective pioneered the development of the concept of overlapping oppressions that Kimberle Crenshaw would later coin as "intersectionality." (They took their name from the Combahee River (SC) Raid, an 1863 military action led by Harriet Tubman that freed 750 enslaved people.)
On this Out-FM program, you will hear co-founder and leader Demita Frazier recount and analyze the events leading to Combahee's founding -- sparked by a combination of widespread racism in the mostly white-led mainstream feminist movement; sexism and homophobia by Black men in the Black Power movement; and the lack of support for socialism or lesbian freedom in the then-new National Black Feminist Organization. She also talks about the important work done by the Collective.
Demita Frazier spoke in October at the Lesbian Lives Conference, hosted by Sinister Wisdom (a multicultural lesbian arts and literary journal),the Journal of Lesbian Studies, and CLAGS: the Center for LGBT Studies at the City University of New York. This was part of the continued celebration of the 50th anniversary of Combahee. We thank Lesbian Lives for permitting us to broadcast this important presentation.
